Stop Right Now
by the author formerly known as
Summary: Roxas never expected that moving to a different high school would mean getting caught up in a game of fate. roxas/olette sora/kairi sora/roxas ish and serious roxas/axel friendship scenes! WIP
1. Chapter 1

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 1

**H**e'd always been shy. Even at the age of 13, with an appearance nothing short of absolutely amazing and a sense of humor that could rock the world, at a school he'd been attending since he was just young– even then he had trouble making friends.

So when he moved to a new school– 16, and painfully still awkward– well he wasn't expecting to make friends faster than he could mess up in front of the teachers. It was something simply bizarre: something shot right out of the ballpark.

The words, "hey new kid, what up? I'm Sora and you can tell because I'm an awesome ninja person" were 'never allowed in his house again'; that was how badly he was shocked when the boy next to him leaned over and actually spoke to him.

The introduction was sloppy and nervous and as usual he made a fool of himself– but Sora insisted that he had to "meet my partners in sneaky awesomeness. It'll be like, a ninja initiation."

Well he met Sora's partners in sneaky awesomeness alright, each of them as desperately obsessed with men in black that shot metal stars at people as the last was. But he stuck it through– he nodded when they talked about these new things they were getting– "wheels of wind and fire." That was what they called it. He took it to be some sort of ninja weapon.

He thought they seemed like ridiculous people.

He didn't realize that they thought the same of him until they were all laughing at him and trying to stand straight.

"Oh, _man_. We aren't actually ninjas–" _Really_,** now**? "–Seriously, though, my name is Sora. I'm– not a ninja, but whatever. And this– well his name isn't Dragonfire, this is Riku. And this is Tidus– but he actually does have a _pet bunny _named Greycloud the Destroyer. This is Wakka. And this is Axel."

Each of them nodding at him and still grinning, they were trying not to laugh again.

"I kind of figured."

"– Er. Figured that you weren't ninjas, that is."

"...Which is to say–"

"Ah, nevermind."

And at this point they probably all thought that he was crazy.

Nodding their heads still, "mmhmm." "Kay, new kid." "Right."

"Wait– what's your name?"

This from– _Axel_. He was nearly calling the red-headed boy FIRE-DEATH-BRINGER, or whatever they'd said his name was earlier.

"Roxas... Is my name. My name is–"

"Wha– and you get what I'm saying."

"Right."

"Wellll, Roxas–"and Sora was the one speaking again– "Welcome to Cardboard City."

"..."

"We call it that 'cause it sounds way better than– whatever this place is called. We don't actually know, because we've been calling it Cardboard City since, like– age 3. We could probably find out by paying attention to classes and signs and whatnot. But... Just... No."

"..You don't know the name of your own town?"

"(silence)"

"..."

"(roxas feels awkward)"

"The school. We call the school–""Seriously–""–Not _that_ dumb""Cardboard City."

"That's what we call the school," Sora said, and Riku finished, "Not the town."

"Oh."

"...You don't know the name of your own _school_?"

They all sort of answered one on top of the other, ragged explanations coming one after the other.

"Well, no."

"Kind of."

"...No. Just– Well..."

"A little bit."

"Technically, yes."

"Not really."

"**Very small rocks!"**

They all laughed at that, Wakka's final answer. Roxas just didn't get it.

"We know what the school's called," Tidus said, trying to hold a sage expression on his face.

"Yeah, mon," was Wakka's follow-up. "It's uh... Glide... Memorial..."

"Dude, that's the church down the street," "oh."

Riku's lips pressed a tight line into shape.

"Victoria Lane High School..."

"...Or something like that."

"Victoria _Lake_, man. It's Victorian _Lake_," Sora told him.

Axel added, "Victoria Lake **Senior** High School. There's a senior in there. Since it's... grades 9 to 12, and not... 7, or whatever."

There was silence, until Roxas started to laugh. They all just stared at him, until he managed to say, "I like how it takes _three of you_ to figure out the name of your school. That's... that's good. It's a good one."

He didn't mention that the sign outside just said "Victoria Lane High School."

Roxas supposed that it really wasn't important, otherwise, they would know.

He wasn't sure how he'd come under the mind set that these guys knew about anything important.


	2. Chapter 2

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 2

"I had this great idea for a story."

For the amount of talking they'd done when first meeting him, Roxas assumed that Sora and his posse-like just chattered all the time. Within the first week he realized that this was not all true all the time. At lunch there was silence with everyone looking awkwardly at their food, and sometimes eating it but more often than not, not. Roxas' mind did backflips over itself trying to explain these odd boys' odd habits.

He concluded, eventually, that it was after the initial introduction they had all quieted down and now felt awkward. All confused with nothing to say. Axel later told him the truth... Or as much of it as he knew.

And Roxas hadn't then been so wondering the rest of the week, and he did his duty sitting in silence at the lunch table and enjoying himself later. Though he did this still not knowing why because Axel's explanation on that first day of school was really just pure shite.

"We don't talk during lunch. And none of us really know why. But it's like a ritual you know. I mean– oh _yeah_ we talk sometimes you know. Sometimes. But mostly there's just nothing to say... Or rather there's lots to say but it goes unsaid. Lunch is just an awkward time, you know. Who talks during lunch?"

Roxas did not mention everyone else at every other table in the cafeteria. Instead he nodded wisely, and felt that much wiser for it. (And Axel was one of the only ones to actually speak to him about it. Plus a lot of other things. The others– aside from Sora– started to seem a little _hostile_, in fact. Which shocked Roxas but he didn't mention it.)

So when Sora broke the silence on the next Monday, Roxas' fifth day of school here, having come last Tuesday, he was shocked (even though Axel _had_ said there was sometimes conversation.)

He looked up briefly but then looked back down, because everyone else was. Looking down, that is. Sora, speaking now, was looking down too. At his food. Staring at your food was odd, but necessary, he realized. He also knew that at his old school he would've been curious as to why these boys acted so strangely. But here on their turf, as it were, their _habitat_, he would follow their rules. It still felt strange.

"Basically–" He heard Sora lick his lips on the verge of the next word. "...Basically," the brunet repeats... "there are these four people. Three men and one girl I'm thinking but the details still haven't come to me–" There's a collective murmur of understanding from everyone else, as if Sora really should be _waiting_ to receive the details, like in a dream, rather than thinking them up... Like a normal writer. Roxas didn't know Sora was a writer. "And... They're evil, I suppose. Really bad. And in this place where they live, wearing a person's clothes makes you turn into that person.." Sora sighed, and then added hastily. "Depending, I mean.. On how imprinted their soul is into the clothing. Like their favourite piece of clothing would turn you completely, inexorably into that person. And something they wore only once... well you might start liking their favourite food, perhaps, but no more... And this is... Filtered, of course! from the original vision, you understand." Everyone understood but Roxas. Roxas could feel the understanding in the air without looking up. Feel it like a heat that reached everyone but him. Roxas shivered in the limbo that is misunderstanding.

...He genuinely thought it was a serious story, thought that Sora was being... well. _Serious_, for once. Until he heard the next line.

"...And these four evil people find... They find– " Sora wet his lips again. "The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Roxas almost burst out laughing except that no one else did, and he still felt that the understanding was beyond him.

"And... They catch the Turtles, and skin them. And wear their skins as a costume. So obviously... They start... turning into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... But of course, once a person is evil, a person is _always_ evil. You never lose that part of yourself." Roxas heard the rustling of fabric that meant heads were nodding. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that no one looked up.

"So... It's... Basically, I mean... Just a bunch of... Like 20 chapters of the Teenage Mutants Ninja Turtles killing people and throwing cars through buildings... Buicks, specifically."

Roxas couldn't help himself. "Why Buicks?"

"Pardon?" Sora seemed genuinely shocked that Roxas had spoken, and when Roxas looked up, everyone was looking at him. He knew that Riku, Tidus, and Wakka would probably seem even more hostile after this.

"Why Buicks?"

"It sounds good" was Sora's reply. And Roxas nodded in understanding, though he did not understand.

They all looked back down to their food. Sora continued to speak. "_Anyways_," he said, and Roxas heard the frustration in his voice riding like the crest of a wave, about to flip over and be all that remains of the original tide... "I haven't actually... I don't _know_, that is to say, how it will end."

Roxas thought the ending probably involved icebergs, though he couldn't say why. (This was happening more and more now. Random instincts that really didn't make sense had become a dime a dozen in his mind.)

"Does it involve icebergs?" he asked. This was the first time he'd voiced a random insight and he felt really stupid. Everyone was looking at him, most of them angry-seeming but Sora looked confused, then he smiled.

"Actually yes, I was thinking it would. I just don't know how. But I'm thinking maybe... Maybe a bunch of little kids sail in on icebergs. Or just... Not icebergs but patches of ice anyways, because... and there's an abandoned barn involved but I'm not sure how... Anyways though a lot of little kids sail in on these broken ice patches and maybe get killed or maybe they save the day."

And that was Sora's story idea.

Roxas thought it sounded like junk Sora had in a dream. But everyone else took it seriously, so he did too. And he was seemingly more welcome after the iceberg thing.

Honestly, he just didn't know anymore.

But among very small rocks and turtles and Disney movies and (he'd learned this when a boy in his class made a joke and got degraded immediately after by Tidus, Axel and Riku) a severe aversion to baby jokes (of the eating or molesting sort), Roxas added Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sora's story ideas to a list of things that were important.

Things to be revered was a better term. Because they were great, but somewhere back in the times before he'd met these boys, he knew they weren't important.


	3. Chapter 3

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 3

"You know what your name sounds like?" the boy asked, kicking a pebble mercilessly down the sidewalk. The question shocked Roxas, a) because it took most people more than one and a half weeks to make the connection between his name and 'rocks ass,' as in rocking ass, as in yes, okay? -Roxas knew his name sounded similar to a creepy term for gay sex, and b) because the question came from Riku, who still had not really warmed up to him. (The six of them were headed at that time to Sora's house, where they told him enthusiastically he would get to meet London. Roxas had no clue who that was, and none would answer his questions, so he had settled to waiting for the moment of truth to find out.)

Roxas snapped, "No, what does it sound like?" knowing perfectly well the answer before it came. Riku glanced up curiously, apparently only a little surprised by the blond's obvious anger.

"Roxanne," he answered simply.

"Oh." Roxas' voice was airy and surprised. "So...?"

"_So_," Wakka said suggestively, clearing knowing what Riku was getting at. "We can sing to it."

"I'm sorry, what?" Roxas questioned, going a little pale.

But he got no answer. Before he could react, they had bounded away from him, and now they sang, loudly, not listening at all to Roxas' pleas and protests. They were dancing, too. In the middle of the street, they were dancing.

"Roxas," several harmonized, while Tidus nearly shouted, "Put out the red light!"

"Oh, Christ," Roxas muttered under his breath. "That's it, I'm outta here."

The sound of tinkling laughter came from behind him, and he spun to see a beautiful red-haired girl standing there. He recognized her from school, but hadn't really the faintest idea who she was.

"Don't worry," she told him. "They embarrass everyone. They're creeps... You must be Roxas."

"We're not creeps!"

Roxas jumped. How the hell had Sora gotten behind him, so quickly, so quietly? He turned to look, and there they all stood. Jeez, he thought, what are these guys, aliens?

"Awh come on, Kairi," Riku said. His voice was, inexplicably, caught between an arrogant drawl and a child's whine. "You're supposed to be our bestest pal."

He hunched his shoulders and made puppy eyes. Roxas had to admit- the transformation from haughty, rude teen to innocent, helpless boy was almost believable... almost.

"Ha, nice try Riku!" Kairi had a girly, childish voice, but Roxas couldn't decide if it was cute or annoying. "_So_, where are you guys headed?"

"To the bat cave." Wakka shrugged as he spoke, the statement clearly no big deal.

"To Sora's," Axel groaned, rolling his eyes at Wakka. He added, "Roxas still hasn't met London."

"Oh!" Kairi's eyes lit up like a tablecloth on fire, and a flush glowed her cheeks. "You don't mind if I come, do-"

"No, Kairi," they chorused at once, Roxas standing by confused and curious.

Kairi assured him, "You'll like London. Everyone does. He's-"

"Don't worry, Kairi," Riku chuckled. "We've already given him the speech. He doesn't need another one."

Kairi pouted, and stuck her tongue out at Riku, but then skipped down the street as if it were the greatest day of her life. Sora walked beside her, not needing to quicken his pace at all to keep up with the bouncing girl. Kairi was, Roxas seemed to notice for the first time, unbelievably tiny.

Riku, Wakka and Axel followed, talking animatedly about God knows what. That left Roxas with Tidus, which he didn't really mind. Tidus was an enthusiastic guy, a little strong-headed and rash, but still a good person.

"Kairi's cool," Tidus informed him, Roxas feeling like he didn't mean it in the teen sense of the word, _awesome_, _sweet_... _fly_, whatever. It felt more like, "she's cool" as in "she's privy to mobster information and won't rat us out." He couldn't explain the reasons he felt this way- it just fit. The blond next to him jutted his chin forward, continuing, "She's..."

"Yeah," Roxas cut him off. "Yeah, I see that."

Kairi didn't have to reach out and grab Sora's hand or be carried off like a fair maiden with her knight. The gooey love looks they gave each other was more than enough.

Then Tidus laughed: "And you really can't blame her for those tendencies to brag and gush about London. Don't they all do that?"

Roxas was about to ask what he meant by that, but then they were turning into a gated driveway, a fairly big one, and he realized they were at Sora's place. The double front doors swung open before him as Axel and Riku raced each other inside, and Roxas stood respectfully just beyond the threshold, letting them close behind him. Kairi was gurgling and cooing at the other end of the entry room, scooping down to pick up something small.

It was a baby, God, ten months old, _maybe_. Just learning how to speak. "_Moma._"

His pronunciation was a little off, but Roxas knew what he was saying well enough. The baby laughed with happiness as Kairi made funny faces at him, kissing his tiny nose. His eyes were blue. He held a ring of plastic keys in his clenched fist. So this, Roxas assumed, was London.

Well, he thought, looking back on the past week, am I honestly surprised?

He had to admit: the answer was a definite no.


	4. Chapter 4

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 4

"Why doesn't he live with Kairi?" Roxas asked Axel, shaking a toy in London's face while he bounced the baby on his lap. They were sitting in Sora's backyard, the others lounging over by the pool. Since London had quickly taken to Roxas (much to the surprise of everyone there, and much to the horror of Roxas) he seemed to be on babysitting duty. Which meant he wasn't allowed anywhere near the pool. Axel, thankfully, hated water and chose to sit with Roxas. And Axel, thankfully, was the one member of the group Roxas felt comfortable asking questions of.

"Oh," he replied in his slow drawl. "Kairi's dad's a fucking psychopath- so it just isn't safe, Roxas. Most of the time he's as drunk as."

Axel had the unfortunate habit of being unable to finish similes.

"I see," Roxas replied as evenly as he could, both saddened and outraged by what Axel told him. It just wasn't fair that a sweet, and apparently fragile girl like Kairi would have an abusive father. It didn't help that Kairi reminded Roxas intensely of his friend Naminé from back home, and Axel's words brought the idea of her father hurting her unbidden to his mind. But Roxas knew Naminé's dad, and he wouldn't do something like that. He knew his friends' families and their lives inside out. Roxas' old group of friends had been extremely close-knit, all of them being outcasts somehow, but all of them being perfect for each other just the same. There was Hayner, who was too angry for others to get close to him, and Pence, who was simply a quirky fellow, no two ways around it, and Olette... Roxas didn't realize that he had a distant, pleased look on his face and that he was lost completely in the world of his friends from back home until London let out a wicked squeal, indignant at being ignored.

"Huh?" Roxas asked, staring at the child with an empty expression. Then he recalled where he was and threw himself enthusiastically into playing with London.

"I thought he was supposed to hate people," Roxas grumbled.

"He usually does," Axel muttered, and Roxas heard, rather than saw, his frown. "I don't understand it. It takes him a long time usually to warm up to people. He's not _hateful_, really, but... He doesn't usually like people outside the friends Sora brings around often. I've never seen him become so attached to someone so fast. But once he gets used to you, he's real sweet."

Roxas sighed, "Why me? Couldn't you go play with Riku?"

He stares beseechingly into London's eyes. Maybe the baby understood him, or maybe he just did it for fun, but he shook his head adamantly and slapped Roxas' hand, exclaiming, "No! Bad!"

Axel laughed heartily next to him. "I think he likes you because you look so much like Sora," he reflected, staring absently across the pool as if his statement was so mundane it didn't require any sort of thought.

"Huh?"

Roxas was absently aware that it was beginning to sound as if "huh" was the only word in his vocabulary. But it could have been worse, Roxas reflected, turning to study his reflection in a nearby window: he might have been unable to complete similes, and that would surely be the end of the world. He glanced to where Sora sat with Kairi across the pool, noting that they _did_ have some similarities in their appearance. A couple, anyways. Not enough for a child to pick up on. They had the same pointed chin, the same blue eyes, the same tan... the same hollow looking cheeks, Roxas noted only a little bitterly.

They also had the same eyebrows. And okay, their foreheads were similarly shaped.

_But_, Roxas observed keenly, at the same time as he observed with wry dryness that it suddenly felt like the end of the world to look like Sora, _they had different eye shapes!_ Roxas' eyes were definitely wider, and rounder. Definitely.

_And_, on further inspection, their cheeks weren't so much the same. Sora's were notably rounder. And obviously, Roxas' hair was blonde. (He would never admit it, but Roxas was thoroughly proud of his blond hair. It in itself felt like an astonishing accomplishment sometimes. More specifically, everytime Roxas looked in the mirror and noted how awesome his hair was.)

"You are seriously as arrogant as," Axel drawled, cutting into Roxas' thoughts. "You've been staring at your reflection for the past five minutes. You're just luckly London didn' t notice you've been ignoring him."

Roxas glanced down at the baby, and sure enough, London was ignoring Roxas ignoring him. Which was fine by Roxas. He drew his eyes up to Axel's face.

"I'm not arrogant!" he argued, pouting. "I was just looking to see if you were right. And I think you aren't. I don't look so much like Sora."

Axel scoffed. "You do."

"I don't!"

"Yes... You do."

"_No_, I don't."

"Roxas... are you blind? You _do_ look like him!"

"I certainly do not!"

Axel opened his mouth to protest once more in an argument that Roxas was sure they both knew was ridiculous, but the redhead didn't end up saying anything. Instead he spaced out, his pupils dilating and his mouth going slack.

Roxas stared hesitantly. "Axel?" he asked, and he noticed how his voice seemed to echo about the pool area. He glanced around. He heard Kairi inside bustling about the kitchen, but the other boys were all copying Axel's dead face. None of them moved- except Tidus, who was floating on his back in the pool, eyes staring unblinkingly into the sun.

London giggled and clapped his hands, and the noise carried against the wind, alone, alone, alone. No, Roxas thought, no wind. Where was the wind? The trees were as still as... As what? Roxas shuddered. They were just still. As still as.

He hugged the baby closer to him, and idly thought, I've taken up with robots. But then he thought: Tidus is swimming. He's no robot.

And suddenly the wind picked up, and next to him, Axel said, "You do too look like him!" and the poolroom was filled with chatter, and London looked up into Roxas' face with wide eyes that were clear and bright. And blue.

As clear and bright and blue as.


	5. Chapter 5

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 5

**R**oxas chewed the inside of his cheek slowly. It hurt, but he didn't stop. Every part of his body screamed at him to tell Sora about the weird dream he'd had last night. It felt important. It _was_ important. The voice in his head told him so.

But it was lunchtime. And you did not talk at lunchtime.

In Roxas' dream, the sky was blue. Except that then it was grey and red with fire that fell from the skies. Someone screamed, and the next thing Roxas knew, the fire was everywhere. And there was death everywhere, though he couldn't see it. His vision shook as if he were watching the scene from a held hand camera. And Roxas awoke.

He didn't say any of this. But someone did have an announcement to make.

Tidus said, "I planted a stink bomb in Kuja's locker," and Riku said, "good," and there was silence.

Then Axel let them all know, "Man I hate that guy. Why don't we just kick his ass instead of these stupid pranks? I could take him. I could handle just about anything."

"Except corroborative nouns," Roxas added dryly, and was amazed that the others laughed. Riku actually lightly spit out a piece of food into his napkin through his chuckles. Which was, all things considered, one of the more accepting things Riku had done thus far.

Sora cleared his throat and scratched his lip. He gazed away from the table and smiled goofily, and Roxas knew Kairi was probably on the other side of the cafeteria waving.

"I think we should just ignore Kuja for now," Sora muttered when he dragged his eyes back to the others. Roxas didn't know who Kuja was, but he also knew that he didn't have to ask. Axel would show him, and then he would understand. "I don't think he... plays as big a role in what's happening as we think."

The others considered this and nodded one by one. Then Sora shrugged, smiled again, and swiveled to look at Roxas.

The funny thing about it was that Roxas heard the question in the other's silence instead of seeing it on his face. He sighed, studying the bricks on the wall across the room.

"I had the weirdest dream last night," he finally confessed, though he wondered if his silly dreams were really important enough to be discussed at lunch, of all times. And then he felt like a moron for thinking such a thought.

"About what?"

Roxas shrugged, unsure of how to answer. It hadn't really been _about_ anything. It had just been images, and sound, and death.

"About... Explosions, and death, and fire that fell from the sky." Roxas shivered, because saying it out loud was different from listening to his inner monologue. The dream felt real all of a sudden, and he breathed deeply to dispel the cold feeling settling across his shoulders like a drape.

The others were quiet, until Wakka said, "That's bad, right?"

Roxas couldn't understand how Wakka might possibly think that had been a good dream, and opened his mouth to answer, but then he realized that the question was not directed at him. And that was a little disturbing, if not a lot disturbing.

But Sora only shrugged. "Maybe you should get a better sleep. Have you considered investing in a sleeping mask?"

The bell rang then, and the group drifted away to their separate classes. Roxas and Axel headed for the doors to the science block, just as Roxas recalled something else he wanted to mention. He turned, and caught a glimpse, between the throng of people, of Sora in a quiet, heated discussion with Riku and Wakka in one corner of the room. They stood apart from the other students, and Roxas could see the strain in their necks that indicated whispering. He turned and followed Axel, thought forgotten, his mind whirring instead to make a connection he couldn't understand.

"Kuja's a dick," Axel said, as if on cue, when Roxas caught up with him. "He's involved in a great number of things which concern us, obviously, but right now the main issue is that he's been harrassing Kairi."

"Oh. Well, fuck him," Roxas said, overwhelmed with a sense of protectiveness. Kairi might be a mom, but she was as fragile as any child he'd met. As fragile as...

Roxas thought of Namine, briefly, but then pushed her from his thoughts. She always surfaced when he thought of Kairi, though he couldn't explain why. Thoughts of Namine, of course, brought up a host of emotions and memories that weren't entirely welcome when Roxas was trying to settle into a new life.

"So... Tidus thinks planting stink bombs in his locker will make him leave Kairi alone?"

"Not really, no. I think that's just to piss him off, but still... I believe in a more direct approach."

Roxas smiled to himself. "I believe it," he murmured. And as he sat in class next to Axel, listening to the teacher's drone begin, he remembered the looks on their faces as Sora, Riku and Wakka conversed privately across the cafeteria.

_I believe it_, he thought again, for no reason he could explain, glancing out the window, the blue sky jumping into his eyes... and a single image of fire falling from the clouds caught in his mind.


	6. Chapter 6

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 6

**R**oxas was nervous, at first, about having Sora in his home. Sora had this aura about him that made Roxas wonder if he wasn't some sort of all-seeing god. But maybe that was only his paranoia about meeting new people. In any case, he did some minor tidying of his room before letting Sora in. No need to show more than Sora would need to figure Roxas' deepest secrets.

But Roxas needn't worry about tidiness. He was of the impression that Sora wasn't a very neat person himself, and the first thing the brunet was drawn to anyway was the photos lining the walls.

"When was this?" Sora asked, his tongue pressed between his lips in curiosity. It was of Roxas, in the Paopu City hospital, looing put out and embarrassed in his hospital gown, with his fretting mother fluttering at his side.

"The first day I moved here," Roxas admitted, hating that Sora picked _that _photo. "About a week before I started school. I stepped off the train, fell, and hit my head."

Sora turned away from the photo, grinning. "So you're skilled at making entrances?"

"I guess so," Roxas muttered. He had woken up hours later in the hospital with a splitting headache, the white ceiling above of him so empty that for a second he thought he was dead. But the beep of the hospital monitor told him he lived, and when his parents explained to him what had happened, he had been so humiliated.

"And this one?" Sora asked next. "Who's the babe?"

"That's Naminé," Roxas said, coughing a bit. "My ex."

"She looks a bit..." Sora trailed off, shrugging. "Why'd you break up?"

"Long distance relationship would've been, I don't know, stressful. Plus." Roxas paused, sweeping his tongue over his lips. He had never actually told this to anyone before. "I didn't really _like_ her, you know. I mean I did," Roxas quickly amended when Sora looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "But as a friend. And I always felt really bad about not being able to return her feelings, and all our friends expected us to get together someday, so..." Roxas shrugged. "We did."

"Wasn't that... weird?" Sora asked. "I mean, were you together a long time?"

Roxas sighed. "A little over a year."

"Well... didn't she want to..."

"Yes," Roxas said, quickly, before Sora could even _finish_ that sentence. "Yes. But, she was always too shy to come out and ask for such things, and I couldn't initiate anything like that. I would have just died from guilt, knowing that it... meant something to her, that she cared for me, and that I was just..."

"Right," Sora said, moving over to look at the next photo. "That would have been quite low, I suppose."

"Right. I did... _love_ her. In a way. I just wasn't attracted to her."

Sora nodded, but his gaze was focussed on the next picture, and Roxas doubted he even remembered who they'd been talking about.

"Where's this?"

"That's at the clock tower in Twilight Town. It was half-abandoned and there was this place along the side, hidden by a crumbling wall..." Roxas could feel his tongue getting heavier, his mind drifting. "It was our place," he said, his voice warm. "No one knew about it but us."

"Like our island," Sora murmured, and Roxas recognized the inflection of memory in his voice, like his own. The Sora became nearly business like again and asked, "The people?"

Roxas drifted closer, so that he could look– he knew who was in it, of course, but he missed their faces. "Hayner on the left, the obnoxious looking one, and Pence next to him." You could tell, in the picture, that Pence _knew_ Hayner was giving him bunny ears. But it didn't really matter between friends. "And Olette next to Pence."

Roxas struggled to keep his voice neutral. He missed his friends, missed standing there on the end, next to Olette, their arms wrapped around each other, giving identical piece signs and silly faces, with Hayner looking a right git on the other side of Pence, the little dark haired boy the only one in the group who appeared to have any semblance of sense.

"This one?" Sora jutted his chin toward the next picture.

"The day I left, at the train station."

The worst day ever. He had put off breaking up with Naminé until just then, and when it had finally happened he had wanted to die for putting her through so much pain. They stood apart from the group, Hayner and Pence and Olette making polite farewells to Roxas' parents. Roxas suspected that only Olette cared if she would ever see his mom and dad again, but they all understood the need for Roxas and Naminé to have a moment alone together.

It just wouldn't have worked, he remembered telling her. He cared for her, but she would be happier, and more free. She could move on– and, he thought silently, he could forget in peace.

"Fine," Naminé said through tears. "I guess– you're probably right. It'll be... better this way." Her lip trembled. She hugged him fiercely, hiccoughing. "I love you, Roxas," she murmured into his shirt.

"I– love you too, Naminé," Roxas had said, disentangling himself from her arms and looking anywhere but at her face. He had kissed her forehead once, before striding purposefully away. He clasped his friends hands for a brief moment, saying his goodbyes quickly. If this dragged out too long, he really would cry. Hayner gripped his shoulder, grinning and muttering some obnoxious thing that Roxas would forget within moments. He exchanged a solemn goodbye with Pence, suddenly understanding that the next time he saw Pence the boy might be taller than four feet. He mentioned this, casually, and had to dance out of the way of Pence's lightly thrown fist.

Then he had hugged Olette, and wished he would never have to let go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 7

"**T**he ocean," Roxas breathed. He heard Axel grunting somewhere to his right. Roxas knew that he sounded like a city slicker who had never seen the ocean before. Right now he didn't care: he knew that London's eyes had reminded him of something– something wide, bright, and blue, and right now, he was looking at it.

Truthfully, though, Roxas had never seen the ocean quite so blue as it was now.

Twilight Town, where Roxas had grown up, was surrounded on one side by ocean and three sides by swamp. The streets ran, narrow and crowded, downhill from the center of town, until they cluttered to an end at the docks on the south side. It seemed like the city's collective waste moved downwards too, straight to the docks where it slipped over the edges and into the ocean. The edges of the swamp that surrounded the rest of the city were filthy, too, and underneath the dark branches you could see broken television sets and old mattresses, slept on by the homeless, bone-weary travelers who had just enough money for a train ticket into the city, but never seemed to get enough money together for a train ticket back out. Roxas had always wondered when news would reach the outside world that there was no fortune to be found in Twilight Town.

The swamp around the city was like a dead and dying, impenetrable wall. The train tracks, and the highway, rose above it on great stone pillars, and Roxas sometimes wondered if they wouldn't fall over and sink into the swamp. They moved away from the city for miles and miles before they tapered down to meet the land and create a regular road. The toll to get on the highway bridge, to pay for its expensive construction over the swamp, was enough that very few of the desperate folks who wandered in ever wandered out.

Maybe that was why everything in Twilight Town was so filthy. Maybe that's why everyone was so poor. Roxas didn't know, but he did know that at the center of town, at the top of the clock tower, just between the bottom corners of the massive clock and the walls, were tiny spaces just big enough to fit two, and if you looked out from them you could see so far that the train tracks faded somewhere into a distant land much greener than the dark moss on the trees. And on the other side of the tower, squeezed into a different place, you could gaze off to a place far enough away that the ocean was no longer covered in filth like it was near the city, and if you had good eyes you might just see a sliver of vibrant, deep blue.

That sliver of deep vibrant blue wasn't the exact shade Roxas was staring at now. But it was pretty damn close, and it occurred to him that finally, he was _here_– or there– that place in the distance that he had always dreamed about, where colour was bright and trees grew tall, and the city wasn't a fading, dilapidated mess around you.

"We don't have all day, you know, Roxas, do you want to see it or not?"

Roxas climbed hastily into the little rowboat Axel had shoved into the water. He wanted to see the islands Sora had mentioned the night before, but his tongue was nothing but a heavy, leaden, and unmoving _thing_ in his mouth when he tried to ask Sora about it. His tongue moved freely with Axel, though, and the red headed boy had agreed easily to show Roxas.

"I don't know why it's me who's always stuck with you," Axel grumbled as they pushed off from the sandy shore.

"You like me," Roxas reminded him. "I'm charming and fun to be around."

"Roxas," Axel muttered, half sounding like he was sighing. "I think you're confused."

Roxas ducked his head and leaned out over the side of the boat, the water washing against the side. He had never seen water such a pure, vibrant colour before, but now that he was above it looking down it seemed as clear as glass. Fish darted beneath and around the boat, a myriad of colours moving in a myriad of patterns. They all moved at once, as if in choreographed dance, and Roxas wondered how any number of beings could share such a deep connection. He had never seen anything quite this free, he realized, had never seen animals in their natural habitat, never seen a smokeless sky, or green grass, or nature so wild and untamed, as pure and intractable as... as...

"Don't lean out over the edge," Axel snapped suddenly.

Roxas pulled back toward the center of the boat, pouting like a small child and ready to snap back. But the look on Axel`s face gave him pause– the other boy`s eyes followed him as he leaned back, crease lines settling into relief when Roxas was back into a position that Axel could define as 'safe,' he supposed.

Roxas felt a strange tingling just beneath the bones in his chest.

"You sound like my mom," he said, laughing to cover up the breathy tone of his voice.

Axel shrugged. "You drown, I might get charged."

Roxas suppressed a grin, and looked over Axel's shoulder at the island growing increasingly close. The trees grew taller on the island than they did on the mainland. Roxas knew that this was only one of many little islands along this area of the coast, but the land was owned by the father of either Riku or Sora, and when the boys were younger their parents had taken them out and built tree forts and walkways all along the island, to make a (relatively) safe place where their children could play. Roxas supposed that as they got older they had been allowed to come to the islands alone, and eventually they had shown their other friends and now it was some sort of exclusive club that they only came to. And now Roxas was there, too.

He stood up in awe as Axel was tying the boat to the dock, and subsequently fell out.

"For God's sake, Roxas," Axel said when Roxas came up sputtering for air. "Don't stand in the boat without... well."

Roxas had already splashed away from Axel, the red head's voice drifting away as he walked up the shore. His pants were sopping wet, but he hardly cared. So was his shirt. Roxas didn't notice.

Here there was golden sand, and over here tropical trees with great thick fruit holding its branches down, and here a massive deck high above his head, constructed on top of tree branches and wooden pillars, railing running along the edges, sometime long ago stopping a tiny Sora and Riku from falling off the side. There was a rock wall to Roxas' right, a waterfall gushing out of a hole in it, and tinier trickles of water slipping from cracks in the smooth rock like tears on a woman's face.

Roxas frowned at the unwelcome comparison and turned his head away, pushing his mind into the future and away from his past. He saw stairs built around the biggest tree he'd ever seen, leading in a spiral to that deck high above. He climbed the stairs at a run, finding with delight at the top that a tiny space had been hollowed out of the massive tree. A space just big enough for him to fit in, maybe with another. Inside there was a hole, and peering through it he could see far enough that the ocean was blue and–

but the ocean was blue _everywhere_ here. Roxas stepped out from the hollowed tree immediately, looking around the deck. On one side the beach was below, on others the ocean, but to the side Roxas saw that he was among the canopy of the forest. He peered into the darkness of the tree branches and jumped back when a great snake slithered out toward him. He admitted later that he might have given a small shriek in surprise. In any case, Axel was there a moment later and had the audacity to laugh when Roxas shuddered at the creature when it stuck out its fat black tongue at him.

"Shut up, Axel, or I'll skin you alive," Roxas muttered.

"Oh look, the others are here." Axel waved to the others from the edge of the railing, calling loudly to them. "Roxas is afraid of snakes!"

Roxas marched over to stand next to Axel, missing whatever it was that Riku yelled up in return, his voice drifting on the wind. There were two other boats tied to the dock next to Axel's. Sora was flaked out on the beach, Riku and Wakka standing together with thei r necks strained up toward Roxas while Axel began walking down the steps to meet them. Tidus was alone on the tiny, separated island, staring into the distance. The line of his back was almost too straight, his hair too still in the wind Roxas could see in the leaves. Tidus turned back to gaze at Sora, his eyes dark, and Sora sat up as if feeling that look. He nodded, and–

but this was all very silly, Roxas thought suddenly. He couldn't tell if Tidus' eyes were darker than usual from this distance. He looked down and saw that his fingers were white against the railing, clutching it as if in pain. He remembered the trickles of water on the rock face and cleared his throat, stepping away from the railing and refusing to look out over the distance toward the vast ocean, and the mainland so far away.

There was an entire island to explore, he supposed, and friends below him, and only bittersweet memories up here where his gaze was far-reaching.


	8. Chapter 8

**Stop Right Now  
**Chapter 8

Roxas awoke screaming like he was back from Hell.

In his dream Roxas walked through a stifling fog, his feet never touching the ground. He took comfort only in the fact that Axel walked beside him, and the night seemed less dark in the glow of his fiery red hair.

With every step Roxas knew that he was approaching something he didn't want to see or understand, but he knew that he had to be there, _someone_ had to be there, and maybe it should be him or Axel. Then again, maybe not.

The image through the dense fog he could handle– it was almost as if it weren't real that way... and of course, Roxas reminded himself, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, it _wasn't_... it was a dream... But the screaming sent such a palpable wave through his body that he shivered in horror, remembering the red across the pavement, not sure if it was Kairi's hair or blood... and the crack as Kuja forced her down...

Roxas stumbled from the bedroom rubbing his face, glaring at the clock that told him it was three in the morning. The house was silent enough that the echoes of his dream sounded as if they were happening just outside the windows. He hated the feeling in his gut when he remembered that he was alone.

Jesus, Roxas thought with a shudder, if his parents were going to spend so much time traveling for business anyway, why hadn't they stayed in Twilight Town?

Flicking on the lights in the kitchen, Roxas began ambling across the room but froze in terror when he heard a loud, shrill sound.

But it wasn't a scream, only the phone. Roxas answered quickly, wondering if it was his mother or father.

"Roxas?"

"...Hayner?"

Roxas blinked, wondering why his friend would call him at such an hour. Time seemed to move slowly in Paopu City, but he'd been there for months and hadn't heard from his friends once...

"Uh, hey. What's up?"

Roxas rubbed his eyes, opening the refridgerator and shifting the phone underneath his chin.

"Uhm, it's three in the morning, man."

"Oh, God, I– did I wake you up? It's just, I wanted..."

Hayner trailed off awkwardly, the following silence effectively forging a thick icy trail through Roxas spine. Hayner was never awkward.

"I was awake," Roxas told him, indiscriminately pulling food from the shelves of the fridge.

"Good," Hayner murmured. "That's good."

The fridge door shut with a soft popping, and Roxas clinked a jar down onto the container. His feet made soft padding noises against the floor.

"Naminé's doing well," Hayner said after a moment.

Roxas paused, his movements slowing for only a moment, before continuing to twist the lid off of a jar of salsa.

"I'm glad to hear it." Roxas was relieved to hear the honesty in his own voice.

"Roxas, things up here are..." Hayner began, and the tone of his voice made gravity feel just a little stronger than it had the moment before.

"Goodnight."

"Huh?" Roxas listened to the click that followed in stunned silence. What had Hayner been about to say? he wondered as he shuffled into the living room, curling into himself upon the sofa, surrounded by his comfort food and fumbling for the remote between the cushions. Roxas flicked on the news, his mind only half registering what was being said.

Hayner had never been one for emotional discourse, Roxas mused lightly, the news anchor's voice a dull hum on the periphery of his consciousness. Perhaps he had only wanted to say _different without you._ Without Roxas. He felt his heart warm at the thought that his friends back home were thinking of him, but squirmed with guilt to think that it was so easy sometimes for him to forget about them. He and Hayner had been best friends for years, and he had never thought he could find someone who he would jive with as easily as him...

A shaky image on the television screen caught his eye. Roxas blinked, jaw dropping in incredulity. He leaned forward in the sofa, nearly losing his balance, but regaining it with a steadying hand on the coffee table.

"...four suspects," the reporter was saying, "Crashed a stolen vehicle through the window of a bank, killing six, before committing a robbery and escaping in a different vehicle."

Roxas watched the security footage with amusement that turned suddenly into horror. The car– a Buick, he noted– was quickly vacated by its passengers, four people in cartoon masks who proceeded to hold the people in the bank at gunpoint.

"Small community... elaborate escape and disappearance..."

Roxas didn't know what the announcer was talking about. All he knew was that four people dressed as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had just crashed a Buick through a window and robbed a bank. He thought of the eerie silence at Sora's house, and Tidus standing against the blue sky, and– God this was all so wrong, Roxas thought, hear pounding as he watched the footage replay. So completely wrong that the shiver coursing through his body felt like the tongue of Satan.

Eyes glassy in the darkness and flicker of the television, Roxas wondered despairingly when his life had become as complicated as–

but perhaps that was a question for another time.


	9. Author's Note

**The next chapter is on its way. In the meantime...**

**Important note to those of you who care: Very soon I will beging transferring everything from this fanfiction account to my livejournal. _You do not need to have a livejournal account to view my entries_. I'm rather tired of ff. nazi's 1001 bugs. The latest 'glitch' has been that the 'new chapter may take 15 minutes to appear' page has been there since I loaded a new chapter 2 days ago. My profile text also mysteriously changed back to the profile text I had a month ago. I'm also not particularly fond of having half my chapters italicized, sentences and sometimes entire paragraphs being mysteriously moved to different places within the chapter, and of course, alerts for 'new stories' I never created. Tangle of Thorns will be completed on fanfiction since there's very few chapters left to load anyway. (And PERHAPS Anticipation, although that depends on how motivated I am to update to two websites. As of right now: not very.)**

**I'm sad to do this since over the years I've had a lot of fun on ff. net, but loading a single chapter can end up being a half hour process sometimes since I have to go through and remove italics line by line, or else text gets deleted. Quite frankly, I don't have the time for (or want to spend it on) fanfiction errors like that. I also know that the Twilight fandom, unlike other fandoms, doesn't thrive much outside of fanfiction. net. Most fandom sites (for instance, Twilighted) link back to ff. net, so I'm going to be a bit cut off, but I really, really, really can't stand the errors anymore. (The Kingdom Hearts fandom is pretty cool over at LJ)**

**I'm looking into maybe adding a new chapter to fanfiction with a link for my latest livejournal chapter for stories like Anticipation, which I know is on the alerts list of many readers. I will determine what works best later.**

**Things like one shots, completed stories, etc. will probably remain here, since there's no need to work on them and therefore no need to move them.**


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